Hakaan (Q4218)
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Hakaan is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Hakaan |
Hakaan is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
Hakaan Yildirim landed on the Paris scene during the Spring 2011 collections. And what a splashy arrival it was. Carine Roitfeld was talking him up, he'd just won the ANDAM Award, and, thanks to creative director Mert Alas, one half of the Mert & Marcus photo team, the cream of that season's model crop walked his runway. Two and a half years later, some things remain unchanged. Alas is still in the picture, which means so are the gorgeous catwalkers. But Yildirim has had his challenges. Last season, his collection was reportedly lost in transit between his atelier in Turkey and Paris, which slowed his momentum. Presumably, his sales, too.The task for Yildirim today, then, was to give himself a jump-start. Souped-up party clothes are as likely to do the trick as anything, especially in a season that's been noteworthy for its sedateness. They're also solidly in the Hakaan repertoire. Working in only black, white, and red, he showed long column gowns with a gothic sensibility, tiny slipdresses that combined matte and shine, and elaborately constructed, peplumed bustier tops worn with sheer trousers or a see-through pencil skirt—plus a couple of leather Perfectos for tossing over it all. Yildirim is a fairly talented dressmaker. The long black gowns with a bit of white peeking out from a single sleeve or the neckline were special. Overall, though, the collection was a real mix, one that lacked a convincing point of view. It wasn't the clincher he needed.
4 March 2013
With photographer Mert Alas of Mert & Marcus fame for a creative director, Hakaan Yildirim's shows have been must-sees since he landed in Paris two Septembers ago. But despite his high profile, he's still new to this fashion week thing. As he's been settling into the routine over the last few seasons, he's tried on different styles with varying degrees of success: body-con to begin with, then more androgynous, followed by Spring's see-through moment. Today, his show'sAfter Hourssoundtrack was a clue: Yildirim went back to the 1980's stylings of Claude Montana and Thierry Mugler.Bold shoulders and rounded sleeves gave his silhouette the inverted triangle shape associated with the decade. Other pieces came with built-out hip panniers, but significantly more pronounced than the ones the designer was experimenting with last season. Shiny lamés in blue, bronze, and black added flash, while quilting gave visual interest to otherwise simple boxy sweatshirt shapes. There were slits up to there on a handful of dresses, but overall, this collection was less overtly sexual than it's been in the past, though still edgy. That could mean good things for the designer's bottom line.
5 March 2012
It doesn't get fiercer than the fashion on the Hakaan runway this morning. Designer Hakaan Yildirim and creative director Mert Alas' woman is a man-eater. She lures her prey with razor-sharp jackets and miniskirts with the sides scooped away, bustier dresses laced tight above slightly padded hips, and sheer organza blouses tucked into slim pencil skirts. The program notes said futuristic Africa and there was a tribal beat on the soundtrack, but Yildirim and Alas weren't thinking literal. The arrowhead motif on a black halter dress cut away at the sides was about as obvious as the referencing got, unless you count cocktail dresses densely embroidered with gold or black beads.The Hakaan clothes are not for the timid or the gal who's carrying around a few extra pounds. A lot of the looks were made from a stiff gridlike lace, providing thousands of tiny little windows through which the models' bare flesh was visible. The nudity issue is a problem to be resolved in the sales room. Or not. One surprising thing we've noticed at the shows is female fashion professionals' increasing comfort level with exposing their underwear.
3 October 2011
The exhausted fashion pack is heading into its fourth straight week of runway shows. It may have been the first day on the main stage of Paris, but we saw a lot of flats in the crowd at Hakaan. Still, the atmosphere at the Ritz was more anticipatory than resigned. The Turkish designer Hakaan Yildirim may not have had his most fabulous fan, Carine Roitfeld, in attendance this season, but his creative director, the photographer Mert Alas, had helped snag Daphne Guinness, whose own heel-less red platforms with tiny gold spikes looked like the result of a love match between Dorothy's ruby slippers and a pair of golf shoes. Where Guinness goes, glamour is not far behind.The Hakaan show definitely was glam. It had all the top models, half of them in short, skintight dresses of the kind that helped Yildirim land last year's ANDAM Prize. For Fall the frocks came in red, black, or white, and often they were sleeveless, the better to appreciate Natalia Vodianova's guns, er, biceps. Some had flippy skirts that put you in mind of Azzedine Alaïa. The other half of the collection was more of a surprise. That would be the half where you might encounter an androgynous, oxford shoe-wearing girl in a boxy gray wool pantsuit in a fabric that says "not interested." "No hips," explained Alas of the directive he gave the models preshow. Yildirim loosened up last season's catsuits considerably; tonight's all-in-one might've married sheer and opaque, but it didn't look like you'd need to worry about splitting a seam if you exerted yourself on the dance floor. Black leather outerwear likewise had an oversize, masculine feel.Yildirim's partnership with Alas, even more than the ANDAM award, has guaranteed him a crowd almost as A-list as his models. It's still early days for his brand. He gets points for delivering on one of the season's biggest trends so far: masculine-feminine.
28 February 2011
It factor. It's hard to define, but you know it when you see it, and it was on full display at Hakaan Yildirim's first Paris show tonight. Sitting front and center was Mert Alas, who now serves as Hakaan's creative director in addition to being, along with partner Marcus Piggott, one half of the world's most influential fashion photographer duo. Next to Alas were Eva Herzigova and Naomi Campbell. And on the runway: Daria, Natalia, Mariacarla, and the tippy-top of the current catwalk crew.Yildirim made a big impression at his first show in London last season, so much so that he won this year's competitive €220,000 ANDAM prize. As a result, observers were wondering if the clothes would live up to all the advance billing.The silhouette is still ultra-fitted, but more minimal than Fall's. Peplums and frills of silk-covered cord made comebacks, only this time there were a whole lot more cutouts, not only on minidresses, but also on second-skin catsuits. This collection will once again earn Yildirim comparisons to Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy. What felt new were the longer lengths—a well-cut black blazer over a narrow skirt with a trailing hem, or that same skirt again, but with a very hot (in all senses of the word), midriff-exposing, long-sleeve leather crop top.The verdict: Hakaan's niche is quite narrow; he's designing for girls with waistlines as tiny as their bank accounts are big, but he's doing a bang-up job of it.
28 September 2010